He slipped into a dark blue silk robe while I cuffed the girl’s hands and ankles. I moved her off the area of the bed she’d made wet-it was the least I could do-carrying her in my arms like a big baby. She was a nice looking woman, despite the circumstances.
He stood nearby, while I did that, nervous but hiding it pretty well. He was taller than me, and had considerable bearing, the mane of white hair, the china-blue eyes, the dark tan, a striking human being; feeling no humiliation at all, it would seem, despite being caught with his pants down.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” His baritone, melodious or not, did have an edge of irritation. Not that I blamed him. Nobody likes to get interrupted in the middle of a blow job.
“We have to get a couple things straight first,” I said, and the nine-millimeter was in my gloved right hand now, the stun gun tucked away in a jacket pocket, his sentry’s. 357 on my hip.
“Such as?” he said. He had winced, just slightly, upon sight of the automatic; otherwise he maintained an admirable cool.
“Do we have it understood,” I said, “that if I were here to kill you, you’d be dead by now? That if I were here to steal from you, you’d be trussed up and we wouldn’t be talking at all? That if this were a kidnapping, I’d have hauled your ass out of here already? Do we understand all that?”
He nodded very slowly. The light blue eyes bored into me like soothing lasers. Their color reminded me of Linda’s eyes. I tried not to think about that.
“I came in here the way I did for a couple of reasons,” I said, “all of them good. First, you’re not an easy man to see. I tried finding you at your campaign headquarters, and heard all about how reclusive you are. Second, I wanted to show you that if somebody did want to see you bad enough, they could get it done, reclusive or not.”
His mouth twitched in a half-smile. “I thought I had excellent security.”
“Your security is pretty half-assed. But even if it were great, you could be gotten to. Anybody can be gotten to.”
“If you’re not here to kill me or steal from me or kidnap me,” he said, “why are you here?”
“To make you a business offer, for one thing. For another, to save your life.”
An eyebrow arched. “Why don’t we go out in the bar and talk.”
“Fine. But if any of your staff should show up- somebody I don’t know about, or the one guy I didn’t take time to bind up, or anybody else with a gun or something — you’re going to make ’em back off. Otherwise, people are going to get hurt. And I can just about guarantee you, you’ll be one of them.”
He nodded, as if to say, fair enough.
“Could I use the bathroom first?” he asked. There was one off the bedroom.
“Sure,” I said. “Leave the door open.”
He frowned at that, but said nothing. He went in there but didn’t use the john. He ran water, washed his hands. Then he bent over the counter, like he was almost kissing it. I didn’t know what he was up to, until he turned and was wiping a little white powder off his nose. The small mirror on the bathroom counter reflected the overhead light.
Then I followed him out into the circular bar.
“Would you care for something to drink?” he asked.
“No. But help yourself.”
He went to the bar and poured himself several fingers of Scotch. Not one to deny himself anything, he withdrew a long fat cigar from a box on the bar and lit it with a wooden match; then he sat in a captain’s chair, which he had dragged to the center of the circle, and motioned for me to sit nearby. I chose instead to take a chair that put my back to the wall and gave me a view of several doors and the open stairway. I kept the gun in my hand and in my lap.
“And what do I call you?” he asked. Half the room between us.
“You can call me Quarry. It’s not my name, exactly, but it’ll do.”
“All right, Mr. Quarry. Perhaps you can explain why you’ve invaded my home-and, apparently, put my entire security staff out of commission.”
“Let me ask you something first. If someone, this afternoon, had told you that one man would enter your compound and put you in the position you’re in right now, what would you have said?”
“I would have found it impossible. Unbelievable.”
“Fine. Keep that in mind when you consider the story I’m about to tell.”
And I told Preston Freed, self-styled presidential candidate, the story. That I was a retired professional assassin who had been offered a million-dollar contract; that he was the target of said contract; that I had refused the contract; that an attempt on my life had subsequently been made. I did not mention the loss of my wife, my life at Paradise Lake. That was none of his fucking business.
Freed listened with rapt attention, eyebrows arching, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowing, widening, as one might expect. But disbelief was something I did not sense. Perhaps in a way I was making a dream come true for him: his paranoia was finally being substantiated, even if the Soviets weren’t involved.
“Now,” I said, “it would seem to me we have some mutual interest in this matter. For my part, I’d like to respond in kind to those who tried to have me killed.”
“Understandable,” Freed said, nodding.
“And you, I would think, would like to identify those who are trying to have you killed.”
“Frankly,” he said, drawing on the thick cigar, “I’d like to do more than just identify them.”
“I thought you might. You need to consider exactly what this situation is: I turned the contract down. That made me a loose end-in a political assassination, involving a national figure, a presidential candidate, one does not leave loose ends. But that speaks only to my situation. What about yours?”
“Mine?”
“Someone else-someone like me-was approached with that million-dollar contract. Someone who accepted it.”
“Is this a conclusion you’ve drawn, or…?”
“It’s more. It’s direct knowledge. I understand you fear retaliation from what you describe as the ‘Drug Conspiracy’-the banks and the mob.”
“The Sicilian/Hebrew Connection,” he said, nodding.
“Spare me. But I will give you this much: somebody with mob connections who died recently gave me that information.”
The icy blue eyes narrowed to slits in the tanned face. “Victor Werner? You killed Victor Werner?”
“I didn’t say that. Did you know him?”
“I never met the man, but I knew of him.” Then, with contempt: “Knew of his ‘family’ ties. He told you of a second assassin?”
“Yes, Werner gave me a name. It’s a name I’m familiar with. Which is one reason why I think I can head this thing off.”
“Head it off?”
“I can stop the hit from going down. Because I know who it was that came to see me, the upstanding citizen who tried to hire me. And I know who he hired in my place.”
“I have to do something about this!”
“No kidding. Look, we can go about this a couple of ways. I can just tell you who these people are, and fade away. You have men on your staff; you might be able to deal with this in-house.”
I knew he wouldn’t want that; but saying this gave me leverage.
“What’s the other way?” he asked, sitting forward.
“I could handle it all. I can take out the other hitter. I can take out those who hired it done, as well.”
“There… there might be more than one person behind this?”
“The man who tried to hire me said he was representing a group of patriotic private citizens.”
He laughed mirthlessly at that. “And you said, this individual spoke of me as a ‘spoiler’-meaning this threat might have come from the right or the left?”
I nodded.
“If I… were to turn you loose on this, to handle it as you wish… what would be in it for you, besides a certain satisfaction?”
I shrugged. “Well, the revenge factor is going to work in your favor. That ‘certain satisfaction’ you mentioned is going to make a hell of a perk. So all I need is ten grand. And you don’t owe me anything unless I deliver.”
Those spooky blues studied me suspiciously. “You said you were offered a million dollars.”
“Ten grand for the assassin. Ten more for whoever hired him.”
“That’s still only twenty thousand dollars.”
“Feel free to tip.”
“Will they… look like accidents?”
“Not necessarily. No frills. Dead is dead.”
He blew out a stream of smoke and raised his eyebrows and considered the ceiling’s open beams. “You know the name of the man who came to see you,” he said.
“That’s right. I did some snooping today.”
“Are you a detective, or an assassin, Mr. Quarry?”
“Necessity has turned me into a little of both, Mr. Freed. Now do you want my help? Or do you want to handle this yourself, in which case I’ll have to ask a finder’s fee of five grand, if you want the names I know.”
He was thinking.
“Or,” I said, “I can just walk out of here, fade into the forest and out of your life. You can choose to not believe me. Or try to deal with this yourself, without the names.”
He was shaking his head no. “I would like, Mr. Quarry, for you to handle this. But I wish to know none of the… messier details.”
“That’s best for all concerned.”
“I would, however, like to know the name of the man who came to see you. Who tried to hire you.”
“You agree to my terms? Ten grand with a ten grand bonus?”
“Yes.”
I drew my upper lip back across my teeth; it was my very worst smile. “Guess what I do if somebody reneges on me.”
“I think I can guess that quite easily, Mr. Quarry.”
“His name is George Ridge.”
He sat up. Turned ashen.
“George Ridge,” he intoned. “George…”
“You were friends once.”
“Yes… yes, we were. He was one of my staunchest supporters..”
“And something went wrong.”
He stood, began slowly to wander amidst the framed political posters and memorabilia. “How much do you know about me-that is, about my party?”
“I’m not political, Mr. Freed. I just don’t care.”
He ignored that. “You must understand-I am thought of, in most quarters, these days, as right-wing. That is a gross simplification. It is an attempt by the powers-that-be, of both major political camps, in league with the media, to defuse my efforts; the Illuminati understand that a third political party, not beholden to the bankers and the mobsters, with a real candidate, not some rehearsed synthetic one, threatens their stranglehold on America, on the world.”
“Mr. Freed…”
“I have a ten-year plan, Mr. Quarry,” he said, and his voice, his presence, added up to something persuasive, despite the loony tunes text. “I must keep it, or humanity is doomed. It is unlikely-though not impossible-that I will secure the Presidency this year; but in the following election, I can and must win-and global alliances are but a step away.”
“Yeah, right. Look…”
“I’m keeping this simple, Mr. Quarry, because you say you are not political. But you live in a world, a society, controlled by politics. What is politics but human relationships? Make love not war, we once said; but both are politics!”
“Right. What about George Ridge?”
He looked out the window into darkness. “We were great friends. You must understand that my political adventure began in the sixties-in Far Left groups; you may recall the SDS, where both George and I were quite active, where George and I met, in fact. But the SDS seemed to us not to be accomplishing its stated goals, and we broke away. This was at Berkeley, where we formed Strikeforce Freedom, to weed out the leftist groups who were only paying lip service to the cause.”
“How did you weed them out exactly?”
“We armed ourselves,” he said matter of factly. “Not with guns: nothing more lethal than a length of pipe or a chain. It was an important moment, because our people understood that rhetoric wasn’t enough. You had to stand and fight.”
“Is that your idea of politics? Violent overthrow of the government?”
“It was then, in those more innocent days,” he said, smiling, as if discussing a childish phase he’d once gone through. “My roots were in Communism, socialism… but I moved on to embrace larger, wider ideals.”
Such as bilking old people out of their savings, I supposed, thinking of the phone scam I’d witnessed in progress at his campaign HQ. Well, that was his business.
I said, “So what are you saying? Ridge maintained his left-wing leanings, while you moved to the right?”
“I am neither right nor left. The Democratic Action party embraces disaffected Republicans and Democrats alike; we have a goodly number of former Ku Klux Klan in our ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder with former SDS. I favor a free-energy economy, and an end to reactionary oligarchs and financiers…”
“That’s just peachy keen. But getting back to Ridge-you seem more disappointed than surprised that he’s behind this.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, with a world-weary smile that quickly disappeared. “And I doubt he represents any group. I think this is personal. He feels I’ve betrayed him-and he has obviously betrayed me.”
I put my hand up in a stop gesture. “I don’t think we can operate from the assumption he’s alone. He may well represent a group-and if he does, you need to know.”
“What about this assassin? Your replacement?”
“I know him. How he works, how he thinks. He won’t, I don’t think, hit you here at home-although you need to expand and improve your security, obviously. But this guy, he’ll do it when you’re out and about. Out among the public.”
“During my primary campaign,” he said, tensing, stopping in front of me. “I make my first public appearance this Tuesday morning. I’ve set up a press conference at the Blackhawk Hotel-which will be well attended by the national media…”
“When Ridge came to see me,” I said, “he specifically mentioned that press conference. If that’s when the hit’s going down, we don’t have much time.”
“What should we do? What can we do?”
I was a little out of my element; a political hit differed drastically from the work I had done, which invariably involved a two-man team, staking out the victim well before the hit, a methodical approach that went out the window when dealing with a sheltered national figure who would present himself as a target only at public events like the coming press conference.
“We’ll start with Ridge,” I said. “I’ll deal with him myself.”
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“I am. I’ll need some details about the man before I go; where he lives, anything about his habits-I already know where his office is. But anything that might be useful.”
“I can certainly help you on that score. Could Ridge lead you to the assassin?”
“Possibly. Probably. But Ridge doesn’t get back in the country till Monday night. So-if Tuesday’s press conference is really it, we’ll have to alert your security staff, just in case I haven’t been able to shut this thing down by then.”
“But you intend to try?”
“Of course. Like I said, I know the man who took the contract. He’s a pro-very good at what he does; stopping him will not be easy-once put in motion, well… but I know him. I worked with him. That’s to our advantage. And I may be able to use what I know about him to find him beforehand; if we’re right about Tuesday morning, he’s probably already in town.”
He sat in the chair next to me and thought. He smelled of musky cologne. The big house was silent. Well, a clock was ticking someplace, but that was about it.
“Let me suggest something,” Freed said, finally, with a sly smile, a fairly demented twinkle in the blue eyes.
“Yeah?”
He lifted a gently lecturing forefinger. “Don’t attempt to deal with this assassin until he tries something…”
“What?”
“Let him be shot down in the attempt on my life.”
“Are you crazy?” Stupid question.
“It would have excellent publicity value,” he said. “I would be taken seriously, immediately. The current administration’s failure to provide me with Secret Service bodyguards would create a scandal. The eyes of America, the world, would be tightly focused on Preston Freed.”
I hate it when people talk about themselves in the third person.
“That would be a very dangerous game,” I said.
“Would it? But if we knew he were coming…”
“We could half-bake a cake. No, I won’t play that game, Freed. It’s too dangerous. For all concerned.”
He shrugged. “All right. It’s just a suggestion. But I’ll say this: if you feel you could arrange it in that fashion, I could see my way clear to offering a second bonus. Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
That was impressive. Not as impressive as a million dollars, but impressive enough for me to say, “I’ll think it over.”
He extended his hand. “Good. I must say you’re a very brave man, Mr. Quarry, storming my citadel as you’ve done.”
I shook the hand; it was firm, not sweating at all. He had his share of stones, too, willing to go on the firing line just to get some publicity. Or maybe it was the coke and the booze making him brave.
“I’ll give you my private phone number,” he said, and went to the bar and scribbled it on a pad. He tore off the sheet and handed it to me, saying, “Day or night. If we need to meet…”
“We will. I may want to brief your security people-just those involved with press conference security. You’ll have to introduce me as a security expert or something. We’ll work that out. Oh, and I made contact with your campaign manager. He’ll be mentioning me to you-Jack Ryan, the name will be-he’ll say I want a private meeting, in return for a sizable contribution. But one way or another, I want immediate acceptance as an insider with the campaign.”
“Done,” he said. “How do I contact you?”
“You don’t. I contact you. And I don’t want to be followed. If any of your people follow me, I’ll just disappear and you’ll be on your own. And you wouldn’t want that.”
“No I wouldn’t.” He sighed, shook his head. Even for a man like Preston Freed, this had been a lot to absorb. “What now?”
“Fill me in a little more on Ridge. Then you’re going to pick out one of your bodyguards for me to uncuff, to have drive me back to my car.”
“Christ, I hadn’t thought about them! How do I explain you to ’em?”
“I’m a security expert, remember?”
“Ah, yes…”
“Tonight, I was just a little test you were giving ’em,” I said. “To see how secure your ‘citadel’ really was.”
“A test,” he said, smiling, liking it.
“Yeah,” I said. “And they flunked.”